At what point do you realize that your blogging days were ten years in the past? At what point do you stop making a post every 6 months and say you are trying to start up again? When do you consider yourself a retired blogger?

Honestly, never. As all properly retired people are wont to do, they never actually STOP doing. They just change tactics. I will always have a blog here on thisboyistoast.nu. I will always write short, often cranky and pithy bursts of personal ramblings. If not here, then maybe back at the parent URL. Or maybe over here on Google+ or, while I continue the job hunt, over here on Google+. I will continue the movie blog and I will continue to amuse friends and family with one liners on Twitter and behind the wall of Facebook. I might even make the relevant comment here and there on LinkedIn.

If anything, this makes a definitive statement that blogging is part of (my) current computing culture, less so from the world of online purpose-focused business-oriented blogs (they have their place but so many them are not blogging but writing legit articles, or op-eds) and more so from the focus of short, personalized commentary. Who cares if almost everyone is doing it and most often badly? It wasn’t too long ago that only writers wrote and the amateurs kept themselves to letter writing and photocopied zines. Now, the world writes. I like that.

Speaking of letter writing, I still will continue to enjoy the fuck out of my vignette story telling via postcards to Mukey, now expanded to less fictional cards to Mano.

When you are off every day, every day feels like the weekend. Except you are not supposed to treat it that way and all the job hunting philosophers say you should treat week days like week days (get up early, work on hunting for 8 hours, dress for work, etc.) and leave the weekends be. In a perfect world, I would not have been laid off, I would be such a productive dedicated sod that even if I was laid off, recruiters would be banging down my door. It ain’t a perfect world.

As a guy who prides himself on making sure other people “get their shit done” I am terrible with my own time and focus. I get overwhelmed by the 99% fruitlessness of job hunting and have to take constant breaks. Other times I reward myself after a productive session with a nice long break, i.e. procrastinate the shit out of things. This flies in the face of the logic of my ticking time bomb. I have to find a job now.

So, why would such a guy get weekends? He won’t. That is why he is up before 9 on a saturday and will probably be trolling job sites later on this morning. Or go for a camera walk. We shall see.

Its been a month or so since I ended my job at The Former Employer and two months or so since I knew it was going to happen. I think I am adequately decompressed. There have been video games to play (finished Crysis 2 and The Last of Us and still playing Max Payne 3) and photos to take / post (photoast still going “strong” and Flickr is more active lately). There has been sleep to be had — eight hours plus to begin with but as certain stresses surmounted, I am back to 6-8. There are still postcard vignette stories to be written, bombarding Mukey with my twisted imagination. And I have been trying to catch up on the movie blog. And and and, I have been trying to keep on top of housework. New good habits are needing to be formed.

I have to admit, I didn’t spend the first bit looking for work. The Former Employer (this is published publicly so no need to napalm bridges) paid for a job counselling service so I have been partaking of that, learning again how to properly format a resume and taking some seminars on networking. I also spent about three weeks arguing with said employer when they decided they did not have to follow Ontario employee standards regarding severance. It wasn’t until that check came in did I feel like the employment was actually over. The job was done. It was finished.

The flip of the coin was that after the first “I HAVE CASH AGAIN” burst of endorphins, the gut wrenching fear of money settled in. You see, that 3 or so months I have to live on is it. Once I am collecting EI, I cannot afford to live in Toronto. They don’t take that into consideration. I guess they expect every unemployed person to have a large buffer of savings, a grand second household income or be living 5 deep in a boarding house. I believe I can find a job in that period but there is an underlying sense of panic every time I use my debit card. But I have new dress / interview clothes & shoes so the rest can go to living expenses. And occasionally beer.

What if I just re-started blogging after all these years, in small, insignificant ways? Not everything should just be a Like in Facebook. Not every personal-share is appropriate for public places where coworkers and family members frequent.

i am a food blog — this is worth exploring more, the kind i like with yummy photos and food. and decently designed. that still makes a difference to me.

fox in the pine — food, cats, photos and creativity. not a narrow blog but focused. nicely laid out and i love the small handwritten style font.

So, I finally have one, I finally have a D-SLR digital camera. It seems like a reason as good as any other to resume quietly blogging.

The first thing to say is, “Damn, I am intimidated!” It’s winter and it’s cold and I am not sure I want lug the camera outside or lug it to work. The only hours of daylight are while I am work. But this seems more the excuse. I have what I have always wanted and now I have to prove to myself that I can produce the images I always said were not capable with the P&S. Its interesting how baggage can come from the most benign sources. Oh to have my brain in control.

But I have moved one step forward and relaunched a third year of the photoast photoblog. Alas, will I get some photos onto it? Time will tell.

I have also begun the browsing of photoblogs that have tips and tutorials and such. I need to maximize this camera. It is no longer about taking photos for an ethereal reason but a definite statement to return to creative statements. I need to FOCUS on something and be enthused about something and actually WORK on something with energy and interest.

Ahhh the mode of a old-timey blogger with all the feelings and the emotions on the page.

LCARS theme for iPhone — Yes, a Star Trek:TNG based theme for your iPhone. Its a little complicated assuming you have all the apps installed on your iPhone the same way the maker does. The thing is that I always wondered about the secret society of ST — the designers. SOMEONE had to come up with all those new mechanical, graphical and uniform designs that constantly changed throughout the series. And they seemed to be quite the lucrative business considering the absolute massive amount of coverage they would provide. The second generation, the original series that is, people were probably all retro-cool.

LED Sheep — And here you thought that MIT kids playing Tetris and Space Invaders on the sides of buildings via computer controlled lights was cool. Try using living creatures!! Does that make the sheep dogs components in an object oriented programming language?

10 Stories that should have fooled you — To someone who had all the cool AP stories of the day emailed to me by a bored partner, these are not all that weird. But they should have been used on The Onion News for a weird “true” April 1st twist.

CupCakeCamp Canada — the “camp” idea, inspired by the BarCamp/DemoCamp idea where adhoc or loosely organized events happening in a relatively short period of time and are pretty much open. But how about cupcakes instead of developer thingies? There’s a cookieCamp somewhere, right?

a new meme — Well, maybe not. But the author of the post seems to believe it is inspired by weird bugs in Nintendo 64 Goldeneye games that cause the sprites to spaz out, seemingly dancing frenetically. But someone how I think all those japanese kids recreating dances to a pop tune might have started somewhere else. So it comes down to another weird thing japanese kids are doing.

Its friday and i haven’t worked much today. Too many interruptions and a disastrous lunch (been a long time since a resto forgot about me) left me distracted and unfocused. I think I might have to take The Beast (what we call our brand of T61s with 15.4 widescreens) home with me and … oh fuck, I didn’t bring my bag with me. Oh well. Sort email and answer things on Monday.

Pocket Yoga — Speaking of Lenovo, this is a design concept for a “pocket PC” that didn’t take off. The funny thing is that it hit the Interweb rounds at the same time I have been seeing ads about the Sony Vaio P, while not as small and sexy, is definitely along the same lines. Lenovo should have gone with this instead of the “slide out screen” they seem to believe will be so innovative.

Annie!! — Yeah, you would go vader on their asses too. Spike might show cut to pieces versions of the three movies ALL … THE … TIME but at least they know how to advertise it.

Doom: Fall of Mars — Remember original Doom? The master of the old school FPS games? Well imagine it reimagined as a isomorph game. Heh.

Augmented Reality Toys — A few months ago a demo app of a lil green monster was doing the rounds. Essentially you printed a little square, ran the app and pointed your webcam at the printout. And a monster appeared on your screen. This uses the same idea but turns it into a game that would use goggles instead of your webcam. FUN !!

Birds Fly Away — Wow. Not only is this a great song but the way she demos it in her kitchen, live mixing her music!! Oh such sexy talented toys. Of course, I went out and got the album right away…. maybe I should pay for it. (thanks wil)

Its spring, I can smell it, in the thawing dog poop and the unidentified scents as the ground thaws. I can see it in the bicycles on the street and the scarf I left on my shelf this morning. I can feel it in the afternoon above-zero temperatures requiring me to take off my jacket as the sun hits the west wall at work. I love spring, I love its reboot of the year, I love the scents my nose can barely pickup (ok, i can live without thawing dog poop) and I love the sense of possibility it brings with it.

Porch to Patio (pdf scan of magazine) — Marmy grew up with a porch, a porch she still years to have again and sit on it in the evenings and watch neighbours go by while sipping a cup of tea. I grew up in the burbs and half way through my life we built a patio. I was a BBQing place but little else. My parents current house has a front end patio that is BBQing and entertaining in the summer and gives them a place to sit and greet people as they come up the driveway. Not many walking neighbours in that rural area. I sat on that patio and read books & drank beer when I last went to visit. I now want a porch but I don’t realistically think I would ever say hello to my neighbours. (via jason)

Anna the Red’s Bento Factory — No matter how annoying it is to others, Marmy and I are japanophiles, amused and fascinated by most of Japanese culture, the good and the bad. Bento is just fun, like a child’s lunchbox all organized and sorted. Bento designed to look like characters is just MORE fun. Too bad I wouldn’t eat half the ingredients in an average bento lunch.

Watchmen opening credits — I was one of the generation who was astounded and in awe of The Watchmen. I didn’t read it in the monthlies but in the graphic novel format but I am not sure when i was first introduced to it; probably Mukey. It showed me what comics COULD be, much like The Sandman, did but kept the ideas of superheroes intact. It never occurred to me that a movie could be made of it, let alone be faithful to the feel, if not the actual panel for panel storytelling. I have not seen the movie yet but these titles DO give me great enthusiasm, as I spent the last year just being calm & suspect of the project. This was the perfect way to introduce the world and some of the flashback & newspaper stories in the graphic novel.

The McGangBang — In my continuing tradition of repellant yet compelling fastfood choices that could possibly kill me if I tried them, I give you a McChicken sandwich inside a double-cheeseburger. Its not as dirty as it sounds but it kinda is. Neat blog too. That said, i am losing my interest in the general topic blog, the personal blog that is more linky love and personal commentary and really being attracted to these subject-matter blogs. I am taking a 180 opinion of where I should go with all of this, I guess.

Cake of Resignation — Not all resignations are a bitter and nasty event. Some are for good reasons with nothing but goodwill for all concerned. There is no bitterness and therefore, cake is a perfect way to say goodbye.